Category: homebirth & pregnancy

Last year at this time, I was quite pregnant. Pregnant and hot. With no air conditioning as is common here, I got desperate. And in my desperation, I discovered my love for watermelon.

I’ve always liked watermelon, I mean, who doesn’t? If you actually know someone who doesn’t like watermelon, I want to know who it is.

When I was little we’d always have watermelon seed spitting contests to see who could spit the farthest. Funny thing, though, I can’t even find a watermelon with REAL seeds anymore. Only the seedless kind around here. Easier to eat, but no contests!

I thought that my watermelon craving was only due to my pregnancy. Apparently, I was wrong. Here it is, watermelon season again, and I JUST CAN’T STOP EATING WATERMELON!

My friend Diane posted this great idea: slice watermelon, cut out with cookie cutters, and freeze on a popsicle stick. I can’t wait to try it!

Everything went according to “plan”. She was born the very day we hoped to have her (for a variety of reasons), the beginning of the 38th week of pregnancy, the morning after a restful Shabbat. The birth was at home, and went perfectly. Labor was just a few hours, and the delivery was done in the water. It was all quite amazing.

Now I’m dealing with the exhaustion, the emotions, the new challenges that each unique baby brings. Yes, I’ve done this four times before. But I’ve never done it with this baby. She’s worth every moment.

That was what my first grade teacher would call out before we played Seven Up, which was my favorite game at that big-kid school. (Well, not the homebirth part).

This time, I mean something entirely different……THE BABY TURNED! HER HEAD IS DOWN!!!Thumbs up, as in, “fantastic.” Head’s down, as in: her head is down. Capish?

I am so excited that she’s finally decided to go along with the program.

While she was turned the wrong way, I did some research and found http://www.spinningbabies.com/. It was very helpful and gave me lots of information as well as recommending the exercises/positions I tried, like the inversion I showed as a video example in one of the last posts. Some of the information on baby position I got from this picture that I borrowed from them. The caption above this picture is

Head Down Is Only Half The Story

I didn’t know this. I’ve heard of “posterior”babies that give you lots of back labor. That’s when the baby’s occiput (the back of the skull) is facing your back, so you see the baby’s face as it comes out, instead of the back of the head. It’s a little harder and usually more uncomfortable to push this baby out.

The ideal baby position is LOA, “Left Occiput Anterior”. This means that the baby is lying along the left side, with the occiput facing the mother’s front (not posterior).

I believe that my little princess is in that ideal position, but I am not sure. At least her head is down, though.

If your baby is head down, but in one of the other positions, SpinningBabies has some exercises/positions that are supposed to be helpful for getting the baby to move. I am going to rest and trust that all is well unless I get an indication of something otherwise.

If at all up to us, we would like to have our baby one week from yesterday, on August 16th. Don’t laugh, we’ve chosen a delivery date in the past, and it worked just fine.

“C-sections shouldn’t be ‘automatic’ for breech births, Canadian doctors say”

Duh.

I can’t believe that since the year 2000, every woman with a breech baby gets cut open. They thought it was safer. I am so glad that it’s finally being concluded that it’s not necessarily true.

But there are still 2 main problems.

First, and this is the smaller of the two, not everyone agrees with this yet. But, I think it will come soon.

The bigger problem lies with the short-sightedness of the medical community.

Nobody has regularly delivered breech babies naturally for so long, that nobody knows how. They don’t get trained to do it. So, even those who might be willing have no skill. Some do, and have, but it’s a small group. And depending where you live, there may be laws against it.

Here in Israel, it is illegal to have a breech delivery at home. So the midwives won’t do it; they’d lose their licenses. And they haven’t been trained for it, anyway. The only option for someone like me (if my baby doesn’t turn) is to go to the hospital. At the hospital, they want to automatically cut me open, and not even try to deliver naturally. I can choose a hospital where they have more doctors who do deliver breeches, and refuse a C-section, and pray that they will not automatically cut.

But it’s a crappy position to be in.

If I lived in many other places, especially in Europe, there would be midwives who would be happy and confident to help me birth this baby at home, as I’d like to.

For now, I’ll keep going to the chiropractor and hanging upside down. And pray that she turns.

I just came from my ultrasound where I found out that this girl of mine (who is indeed a girl, I did find out) is now completely Breech. No good.

I’m going to begin inversion exercises. And continue going to my chiropractor for the Webster’s technique (see video on my last post). And I’m also going to find a Chinese Medicine/acupuncturist and go. I’m not looking forward to that one. I tried acupuncture once and hated it. But it’s certainly better than the alternative.

Here’s the inversion technique I will try. I’m not looking forward to it, either.

My supposed baby girl ( I say “supposed” because it’s possible that the doctor made a mistake, and it’s not a girl I’m carrying) is being difficult. I have heard that boys are much easier, and girls are more complicated… I wonder if she’s starting already?

Last week I went for a checkup to find that the baby was lying in a somewhat transverse position.

This is a true transverse lie. The baby is going side-to-side instead of up and down. A baby in this position cannot be delivered vaginally. It would have to move into a better position, or be delivered surgically. I don’t think I have a true transverse baby; she seems to be more oblique.

This is an oblique position. The head is at least in the right “hemisphere” (down). This baby still needs to move before coming out, but it’s a lot closer.

This is an optimally positioned baby. This is what I want. Head down, in the middle, with the baby’s back facing outward.

There are things that I can do/have done to help my baby turn into the right position.

One is the Webster’s Breech Turning Technique, performed by a chiropractor. I had this done 2 times last week, and on the third visit, my legs were completely balanced, so he didn’t perform it.

I have been diligently trying to discern the baby’s position, but I really can’t tell. So, I’m going for an ultrasound in just a little while to see what she’s up to.

I just read a great article, on Quality Health, put out by Reuters Health in New York. It states that for low-risk births, home is as safe as hospital.

“Low-risk women should be encouraged to plan their birth at the place of their preference, provided the maternity care system is well equipped to underpin women’s choice,” Dr. A. de Jonge, from TNO Quality of Life, Leiden, the Netherlands, and co-researchers note in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

I am tired of people looking at me like I have two heads when I say that I am planning to give birth at home, that I have done so for all four of my babies, and that I wouldn’t want it any other way. Even if it is free of charge in the hospital, and I’d have to pay out of my pocket for a midwife at home. (we have socialized medicine here in Israel.)

I think the tide is turning.

“The findings, they conclude, indicate that with proper services in place, home births are just as safe as hospital births for low-risk women.”

This study was done in the Netherlands, a place that has a lower rate of both maternal and fetal deaths than the US. Maybe we should listen to them.

People are getting wise to the motivation (from the hospital’s side) behind most hospital births, and I am so glad to see more people seeking alternatives. The documentary movie The Business of Being Born gives great details about hospital births; watch the trailer here: http://bit.ly/f1TziCindy Crawford chose to have a home birth and shares her story in 4 parts. Here is the link to watch part 4 of her interview:

I love watermelon, I always have. Crunchy and refreshing, it’s the Perfect Snack For Summertime When You Don’t Have Air Conditioning In Your House. (That’s pretty common in Israel)

And I just found out some great news. Watermelon is not only delicious, it has special qualities which make it a great pregnancy food. Apparently, watermelon:

Eases HeartburnReduces SwellingHelps Morning SicknessAlleviates DehydrationContains Minerals That Help Third Trimester Muscle CrampsContains nutrients important for the development of baby’s brain, vision, nervous, immune systems, and more.

Is high in Lycopene, an antioxidant which increases the skin’s SPF (besides all the other great things that antioxidants do). Who doesn’t want that during the summer?Lycopene also reduces the incidence of preeclampsia by 50%.

I’m enjoying my second bowl of the day right now. Eat up!

This information came from an article on FitPregnancy. Here’s a link to the full article:

For obvious reasons, I have Birthing On My Mind. I can’t believe our little GIRL might be here in FOUR weeks! Maybe five or six. But either way, it’s soon.

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately on the web, researching things related to a more Natural Lifestyle for this blog. I’ve noticed what seems to be a trend: more people are becoming less satisfied with the “standard” hospital birth. Those same people are helping to publicize Natural Childbirth, which almost always means Home Birth.

This is Good.

In getting closer to my own birthing experience and poking around on the web, I’ve discovered something: I am very passionate about hombirth. I see these interviews and read of people’s experiences and tears stream down my face as I feel sad for those who don’t know how peaceful and wonderful the birth experience could and should be.Here is an extremely well-done video which further helps convey some reasons we choose to birth at home. For anyone considering this, or just wanting to know more, WATCH THIS.